Few occupations match the many dangers of coal mining. Even to this day, miners experience the dangers of mine collapses.  The Federal Drive with Tom Temin  next guest is a former coal miner and has devoted a federal career to improving mine safety. His platforms: The Bureau of Mines and, more recently, the Mine Safety and Health Administration, which is part of the Labor Department. Christopher Mark is now a finalist in this year’s Service to America Medals program.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin 
And we should point out I referred to you as Dr. Mark, because you got an doctorate degree in mining. Fair to say?

Christopher Mark 
That’s correct. Yes. In mining engineering, and geomechanics. My specialty is strata control underground, coal mines in particular.

Tom Temin 
All right. And just briefly, you were a coal miner when? And what was it like?

Christopher Mark 
I got a job in the coal mines in southern West Virginia, in Boone County, West Virginia back in 1976. And this was really at the height of the energy crisis. And so there was a lot of expansion going on in the industry, then. It was also a time of major transition in safety in the mines, which I was not really aware of, I just turned 20 years old. But a major landmark legislation, the 1969 Health and Safety Act, had just gone into effect a few years before, and it was still quite a bit of change going on in the industry.

Tom Temin 
All right. And at some point, you decided, well, maybe mining is not the job you’d like to have for the next 40 years. So how did you make the transition to mining engineering and then to the federal government?

Christopher Mark 
Well, I was absolutely fascinated with coal mining when I worked underground. So that’s why I decided to study Mining Engineering. And in particular, the field that I later specialized in, the mine I worked at, we really had some pretty poor roof conditions. So there were roof collapses on a regular basis, nobody that I worked with was killed in any of those, but it certainly intrigued me as a career. At that time, I really wasn’t thinking that far ahead. But ultimately, that became my kind of career goal to learn more about strata control, ground control, and then to try to do something about it.

Tom Temin 
Yeah, that idea of strata control is what causes or lack of strata control. People think that the roof collapses in mines, or from the weight above, and that just gets too much in the roof comes down. I guess your discovery is that there are lateral movements that can cause vertical movements. Is that basically what your chief finding has been.

Christopher Mark 
There’s a number of different aspects to it. That’s one aspect. I hope this isn’t getting too technical. But really, there’s kind of two classes of problems that we deal with. The first one is that you always do have the huge weight of the rock that’s above you. Our coal mines are 500, 1,000, sometimes 2,000 feet deep. And so something has to be there to hold up that 2,000 feet of rock, or it’s just going to smash any workings that you have. And so what you do is you have to leave coal in place strategically in large pillars, maybe 100 feet by 100 feet square. So one big part of my field is sizing these pillars so that you can control the great weight of the mountain above you. So this is what we call global stability. But then you also have local stability, which is dealing with the immediate roof right above the tunnel, the tunnel is typically about 20 feet wide. So it’s that rock directly above you, maybe everything from a small piece of rock, all the way up to maybe 5, 10, 20 feet of rock at the most. But making sure that doesn’t come down when people are working underneath it. And it’s particularly for that local stability problem that the horizontal forces become important. And you’re right, that was a discovery that I made several decades ago. I made the connection, I guess, between the horizontal forces that we see underground, and the plate tectonics that has really transformed the whole earth. All our mountain building and faulting and so on is also related to plate tectonics. And I just kind of connected those two fields and was able to use that knowledge to design better roof support systems for coal mines.

Tom Temin 
We’re speaking with Christopher Mark, he’s a principal strata control specialist at the Mine Safety and Health Administration, and a finalist in this year’s Service to America Medals program. And more than just discovered it, you codified it in tables and in software to help the industry design mines and mines supports better. Tell us more about that.

Christopher Mark 
That was one of the things from my mining experience. And then my kind of close relationships with people actually working in the industry. I kind of realized, and again, this is decades ago, that to put ones research findings in the form of say a peer reviewed publication or even a textbook, that it was going to be very difficult for people to use those things for professional people. We’re not talking about the coal miners underground here, but the professional people who design the mines, but even they were not going to go straight from some kind of a text to a mine design. But on the other hand, if you could take that knowledge and put it into a computer program that was easy to use, then that would have a lot more impact that people would be much more likely to use it. So that’s been kind of one of the real focal points of my work to try to take the research that I do, and then boil it down into a form that’s easy to use, and then put it into a computer program that is easily accessed by the busy mining professionals that don’t do strata control full time and have to fit that into the rest of the work that they do.

Tom Temin 
And your citation mentioned that you have some 160 published peer reviewed papers. So it sounds as if you didn’t discover something 40 years ago, and that’s it. It sounds like this is an ongoing refinement and discovery process for you.

Christopher Mark 
Absolutely. As you mentioned, when I finished my doctorate, I started working for the US Bureau of Mines, which was an agency that went back to 1910. And the Bureau of Mines was actually closed down back in 1995. But the safety research function, it was a research organization. And the research function was folded into the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). So we became the mining arm of NIOSH. So I continued to do research there up until 2010. So during that time, I was able to address a whole range of issues related to strata control. And in each case, tried to kind of move the boundaries of what the best practices were based on the new knowledge I developed, and then get those concepts transferred out to the mining professionals. And then in 2010, I actually transitioned, as you also said, over to the Mine Safety and Health Administration. So this is the safety enforcement arm of the federal government, which again, goes back to that 1969 Health and Safety Act. So my role there is as kind of the chief technical advisor when it comes to strata control issues.

Tom Temin 
And you and I are roughly the same age, within a year of one another, based on the arithmetic I did that you described. And does your mind, as mine sometimes does, wonder back when you’re doing your work to that initial job you had in the mine, digging the coal?

Christopher Mark
Absolutely. And I’ve actually had the luxury in the last few years of writing a couple of papers that directly address that history. In fact, I just had one published that I kind of dug back into industry literature, the trade magazines and so forth of that era, the 60s and 70s going forward and also evaluating the reports of fatal accidents, to try to see exactly what were the things that killed coal miners in those days. We know it was roof falls, but what were the individual attributes? And then how have we addressed them over the years, because when I started working in the mines, on average, every week, a coal miner was killed in a roof fall underground. And in 2016, we had the first year where we had zero roof fall fatalities. So even though the workforce is a lot smaller, still, that’s a tremendous improvement. So I was able to look back and kind of pinpoint exactly which of the innovations that came in during that time really made a difference.

 

The post Federal effort that reduced coal mining dangers first appeared on Federal News Network.

• Teleworking DoD employees are once again a target in the latest spending legislation from House appropriators. A policy rider in the fiscal 2025 defense spending bill would block any funding from going toward the costs of teleworking or remote working for defense employees and contractors. The GOP-led appropriations committee advanced the spending bill last week. The telework measure, however, may be unlikely to make it into the final appropriations package for fiscal 2025. Democrats, with a Senate majority, have remained largely in favor of federal telework. They say it fosters better workforce recruitment and retention.
  (Fiscal 2025 Department of Defense appropriations bill - House Appropriations Committee)
• Early signs are pointing in the right direction after some recent federal workforce reforms. The Office of Personnel Management’s initiatives over the last couple of years have included banning the use of salary history in hiring, creating a portal for internship openings and broadening eligibility for the Pathways Program. Larger impacts of those changes are likely still further down the road. But there are already some initially positive indications, especially for early-career recruitment: “It’s going to take a little more time. I do think what we’re seeing, though, is a renewed and increased interest in federal job opportunities by early-career talent,” OPM Acting Director Rob Shriver said.
  (Early-career federal job openings seeing ‘renewed and increased’ interest, OPM’s Shriver says - Federal News Network)
• The Energy Department wants to secure the future electric grid from cyber threats. Energy’s Office of Cybersecurity, Energy Security and Emergency Response (CESER) is working to set security expectations for using the cloud. Later this year, the CESER office will convene with big cloud service providers and the clean-energy sector to collaborate on cybersecurity requirements. The discussion comes amid growing threats to critical infrastructure, including the energy grid. Many renewable energy operators are relying on cloud computing for critical services.
  (Energy working with renewables industry, cloud providers on cyber requirements - Federal News Network)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is looking to keep aging and disabled vets living independently. The VA is looking at how smart-home technologies and wearables like smartwatches can flag when aging and disabled veterans are having a medical emergency in their homes. Joseph Ronzio, VA’s deputy chief health technology officer, said the department is also taking steps to ensure veterans have a say as to who gets this data, and how it may be used. “Everyone nowadays has some smartness in their home, whether it’s a speaker, whether it’s light switches, whether it’s different types of lights or other physical devices — cameras, motion detectors that leave a digital service," Ronzio said.
  (VA looking at ‘smart home’ tech to keep aging, disabled vets living independently - Federal News Network)
• The Army has taken over the role of the Combatant Command Support Agent for U.S. Cyber Command (CYBERCOM). The Department of the Air Force has served in this role since 2017. The shift mainly happened because the primary location of CYBERCOM operations is at Fort Meade in Maryland, where the Army has a significant presence. About 350 Air Force civilian employees in U.S. Cyber Command became Army civilians as part of the reshuffle. The Army will now provide administrative and logistical support to CYBERCOM. Congress mandated the transition as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.
  (Army becomes combatant command support agent for CYBERCOM - U.S. Army)
• The Defense Department has signed a $248 million deal with Duke Energy to deliver solar power to five military bases in the Carolinas over the next 15 years. The power will come from two newly-built solar arrays in South Carolina, and DoD has agreed to buy all the electricity those facilities can generate. Defense officials said the project helps meet the government’s energy sustainability goals, and – in combination with on-base microgrids – makes the five bases more resilient against disruptions to off-site power supplies.
  (DoD Announces Two Solar Projects to Supply Five Military Installations in the Carolinas With Clean Energy - Department of Defense)
• Three more agencies are getting nearly $30 million to accelerate their IT modernization projects. The governmentwide Technology Modernization Fund is granting $17 million to the Energy Department to update its human resources IT systems. The fund is also backing a Bureau of Indian Education project to modernize school websites for tribal communities. The Federal Election Commission is also getting funding to improve online services for political campaign filers.
  (Technology Modernization Fund announces investments to modernize tribal school websites, campaign finance software, federal HR system - General Services Administration)
• The Department of Transportation (DOT) is drafting a new cybersecurity strategy. Transportation officials told the Government Accountability Office (GAO) that the agency will finalize the plan by September. GAO said DOT needs a strong cyber risk management plan to address threats to its data and systems. The congressional auditor is also urging Transportation officials to take a closer look at their cyber workforce needs.
  (Priority open recommendations for Transportation Department - Government Accountability Office )
• The Space Force’s first chief technology and innovation officer, Lisa Costa, has officially retired from federal service. At the Space Force, Costa was responsible for developing strategies and policies that advanced science and technology efforts across the service. She also spearheaded the Unified Data Library project, a repository that collects space situational awareness data from military and commercial sources. Prior to her current role, she served as the chief information officer at U.S. Special Operations Command. There is no information yet as to where Costa will be working next.
  (Space Force’s chief technology and innovation officer retires from government service - LinkedIn)

The post Teleworking DoD employees targeted by House spending bill first appeared on Federal News Network.

OPM’s initiatives over the last couple years, such as banning the consideration of salary history, creating a job portal for internship openings, and broadening eligibility for paid internships through the Pathways Program, all aim to open the doors to more candidates and make the hiring process more equitable.

Even though the larger impacts of those changes are likely still further down the road, OPM Acting Director Rob Shriver said signs are pointing in the right direction, especially for OPM’s efforts centered on improving recruitment and retention of younger employees.

“I do think what we’re seeing is a renewed and increased interest in federal job opportunities by early-career talent,” Shriver told Federal News Network Tuesday during an event for federal interns hosted at OPM’s headquarters office.

Tuesday’s event was part of OPM’s intern experience program, now in its second year, which offers resources and hosts events for federal interns interested in pursuing a career in public service. The program aims to support early-career federal recruitment and retention overall. It’s also a step toward revitalizing the federal internship program, which has struggled for years.

Early-career numbers appear to be trending in a positive direction. Data from the Office of Management and Budget shows that between fiscal 2022 and 2023, the number of federal interns increased by 33%. There’s also been a recent uptick in the number of federal employees under age 30.

As part of the intern experience program, OPM hosted a panel Tuesday with senior leaders from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, Department of Health and Human Services and Small Business Administration. Dozens of federal interns attended the event in person, with many more joining virtually to listen to the conversation.

“Events like these I think really help foster that engagement, that cohort spirit,” Shriver said after the panel.

Altering the Pathways Program

In another push toward better early-career recruitment, OPM is also now focused on helping agencies update their internal use of the Pathways Program, after finalizing new regulations in April. The recent updates to Pathways aim open the doors to more diverse applicants and alleviate some challenges agencies have historically had with the program.

The Pathways Program changes will still take a while to fully get off the ground, but Shriver said OPM is already working with agency HR offices as they iron out some of the early wrinkles to adjust their agency-specific programs and align with the new regulations.

“There’s a lot of stuff in there that is new for them to figure out, including the types of programs that now qualify — not only community colleges, but technical skills programs,” Shriver said. “Also the fact that now there’s a streamlined pathway to entry for registered apprentices, for people who participated in Job Corps, or [AmeriCorps] VISTA volunteers. [We are] making sure that not only central HR, but HR out in the field, are understanding these new flexibilities.”

That work to help HR offices and other Pathways Program leaders at agencies also involves collaborating with chief human capital officers, hosting informational webinars and educating colleges about the opportunities now possible for a broader swath of candidates, Shriver said. Additionally, OPM is working with agency HR departments to participate in job fairs, reach out to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and meet face to face with potential federal talent.

Just this week, OPM also met with other agencies to discuss its program, “Level Up to Public Service,” which focuses on expanding awareness around public service careers through partnerships with K-12 institutions and universities. The program particularly targets recruitment of individuals with disabilities who may be interested in pursuing federal employment.

“We’re getting a lot of really engaged people that are considering the federal government for a career. They’re asking smart questions, they’re navigating the hiring process, and so I think that our efforts to reach out and engage early-career talent are paying off,” Shriver said. “It’s just a matter of time, with these new tools that we put in place, before we’re going to start seeing that impact.”

Agency-specific targets for early-career talent

Senior leaders like Sara Bronin, chairwoman of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, said early-career employees and interns often bring new and different ideas to her agency.

“The nature of people in preservation is that we always want to keep things the way they are — that’s in some ways the definition of preservation,” Bronin told Federal News Network at OPM’s event Tuesday. “But a field like ours needs fresh perspectives.”

Because of the desire for those broader perspectives, Bronin said her office focuses significantly on early-career talent in both recruitment and development.

“I really try to help interns and early-career professionals understand the big picture, why we are doing something and what their specific contributions can add to that effort,” she said. “For managers, it’s really important to provide the context to arm interns and early-career professionals with information and to connect them with others in the field who can help enhance their understanding of what they’re doing — not just in the internship, but in how they might approach work beyond just their specific internship.”

Additionally, the Environmental Protection Agency is aiming to double their number of federal interns by the end of this summer, according to Performance.gov.

Kimberly Patrick, EPA’s principal deputy assistant administrator for mission support, said while the agency is expanding its onboarding process to offer a full year of resources to new employees, that onboarding will also extend to all of the agency’s interns.

“We want to make this place as attractive as possible for our interns, so caring for them as well, as a part of that umbrella, is something that we’re looking to do, especially as we increased considerably the number of paid interns we’re having at the agency this year,” Patrick said at a June 6 GovExec event.

Alongside managing the intern experience program and other early-career talent efforts, OPM is also planning to create a governmentwide mentoring program for interns in the coming months.

“We talk about it a whole lot — how can we make the government a more attractive employer? What are the obstacles to bringing in early-career talent? And how can we be more competitive as agencies with the other opportunities that you all have?” Shriver said to the interns who attended OPM’s panel Tuesday. “We want to make sure you hear that message from us loud and clear.”

The post Early-career federal job openings seeing ‘renewed and increased’ interest, OPM’s Shriver says first appeared on Federal News Network.

The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that Oregon will opt into Direct File next year, and expects other states will also do so ahead of the next filing season.

The IRS announced last week it will make its Direct File platform a permanent option for taxpayers to file their federal tax returns, after piloting the system this year with 12 states.

More than 140,000 taxpayers used the platform to file federal tax returns this year — exceeding the IRS’ goal of 100,000 users. About 19 million taxpayers living in those 12 states were eligible to use Direct File this year.

The Treasury Department expects at least 580,000 Oregon residents will be eligible to use the free online filing tool next filing season.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) told reporters that Direct File will give taxpayers more options to file their taxes.

“Direct File is long overdue. It’s the kind of public service the government ought to be providing to Americans and Oregonians whenever they can,” Wyden said in a call Tuesday.

At a committee hearing at the end of this year’s filing season, Wyden praised the IRS for creating a free website that allows taxpayers to file their federal tax returns.

“The website was user-friendly, quick and easy to use. I went out and talked to some of those people who used it, and that was the answer that I got,” he said. “It didn’t hassle users with up charges for add-on services they didn’t need. It got overwhelmingly positive reviews. With Direct File, I believe the IRS has built a good tool that people are going to like, because it saves time, headaches and money.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a statement that expanding Direct File will help taxpayers save time and money, “and ensure they receive the tax benefits they are owed.

“After a successful pilot this Filing Season, we are pleased to expand the program as a permanent offering and welcome Oregon as the first new state to offer this free new option to taxpayers,” Yellen said.

The IRS is adding more states to Direct File as House Republicans propose defunding the program.

The House Appropriations Committee released a fiscal 2025 spending bill earlier this month week that would cut IRS funding by nearly 18% and zero out funding for Direct File.

The full committee advanced the bill last week, and awaits a House floor vote.

Wyden told reporters he’ll “fight with everything I’ve got to protect Direct File.”

“If Republicans in the Congress have the opportunity, they are going to put an end to it,” he said.

Congressional Republicans have called Direct File wasteful and duplicative, since some tax software companies already allow taxpayers below a certain income threshold to file online for free through the Free File Alliance program. 

The IRS and U.S. Digital Service spent a combined $31.8 million to launch the Direct File pilot.

However, Wyden said taxpayers deserve more options in how they choose to file.

Intuit, the maker of TurboTax, no longer participates in the IRS Free File program. But Intuit notified some taxpayers in Oregon that its TurboTax software might not have selected the best deduction option, resulting in a possible overpayment to the state.

The state of Oregon says this issue affects about 12,000 of its residents.

“It was another example of how the big software companies have been upcharging for products that aren’t that great to begin with,” Wyden said.

States that opt into Direct File have options in how they participate.

During the Direct File pilot, taxpayers in Arizona, Massachusetts, New York, and California were directed to a state-run tool to complete their state tax returns, after they filed their federal tax returns.

Taxpayers in Arizona, Massachusetts, and New York were also able to import their information from Direct File directly into the state-run platform, making it faster to file their state tax returns.

“Moving from Direct File to the state tool went very smoothly. Taxpayers were able to bring their information with them. It was able to prepopulate a lot of the information needed for a state tax return. And then taxpayers had to answer just a couple of additional state-specific questions to complete the filing of their state return,” an administration official told reporters.

The IRS limited participation in this year’s  Direct File pilot to taxpayers only reporting certain income types, such as wages on a Form W-2, and tax credits like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit.

“Over the next few years, the goal is that direct files eligibility is expanded to cover the most common tax situations, especially those that affect working families,” another administration official told reporters.

The post IRS adds another state to Direct File, as House Republicans seek to defund it first appeared on Federal News Network.

Some forward-thinkers are already challenging the status quo, from Trump’s 2020 executive order prioritizing skills over degrees to the Office of Personnel Management guidance to the recent introduction of the bipartisan ACCESS Act in Congress. It’s clear that change is on the horizon.

So let’s look at the top three reasons non-graduates are uniquely positioned to help government agencies bridge the tech skills gap:

1. Driving innovation through diverse experiences

Non-graduates often enter the tech industry through unconventional paths — rigorous apprenticeships, self-directed learning or honing their skills in entirely different fields. This diversity of experience is a powerful asset for driving innovation and breaking free from the Einstellung Effect that can plague government problem-solving.

These individuals bring a unique blend of hands-on knowledge and theoretical understanding, enabling them to develop creative solutions that can revolutionize public service delivery. In an environment where overcoming entrenched thinking is crucial, non-graduates’ fresh perspectives can be the key to pushing technological boundaries and reimagining what’s possible.

2. Thriving in the face of rapid technological change

The breakneck pace of technological change demands a workforce that can adapt on the fly — a strength many non-graduates possess in spades. Their self-directed learning experiences and ability to quickly master new skills make them invaluable in the ever-shifting government tech landscape.

Non-graduates’ resilience, born from navigating challenges without the traditional support of academia, is a critical asset in an environment where policies, technologies and public needs are constantly evolving. Their agility ensures that government agencies can stay responsive and effective, no matter what technological curveballs come their way.

3. Expanding access to talent and driving cost-efficiency

By prioritizing skills over degrees, government agencies can significantly expand their talent pool and tap into a wealth of often-overlooked candidates. This approach not only promotes greater inclusivity but also offers substantial financial benefits.

Non-graduates often command lower starting salaries than their degree-holding counterparts, a significant consideration in budget-conscious public sectors. Moreover, by focusing on skills and performance, agencies can foster a more competitive and dynamic workforce where employees are motivated to excel based on real-world contributions rather than just their educational pedigree.

Embracing non-graduates in government tech roles represents a bold step towards a more agile, innovative and cost-effective public sector. By valuing diverse experiences, adaptability and practical skills, agencies can enrich their workforce and elevate their service to the public.

However, successfully integrating non-graduates requires more than just a change in hiring practices. Robust tools which align roles with AI-driven skill assessments and targeted microlearning, while ensuring leaders have actionable data-driven insights from skills analytics are essential for ensuring that all team members can thrive in this new paradigm.

As technology continues to evolve exponentially, our hiring practices must keep up. We need to shake up the status quo and build a government workforce ready to tackle tomorrow’s technological challenges.

Tony Holmes is Practice Lead for Solutions Architects Public Sector at Pluralsight.

The post The top 3 reasons the federal government should embrace non-graduates to bridge the tech skills gap first appeared on Federal News Network.

• The spending bill to support the funding for the rest of the government is facing a 25% cut. House appropriators passed the Financial Services and General Government 2025 spending bill yesterday and it is 20% below the administration's request and 10% below this year's enacted levels. But Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said the reductions, especially those to the IRS of some $2 billion, will have a much bigger effect than any one agency's budget. "This bill funds every other bill you are going to consider or it funds paying the almost $900 billion to the debt." Hoyer said the cuts also mean federal workers could face hiring freezes, furloughs or layoffs, which will impact the services to citizens.
  (Markup Fiscal Year 2025 - House Appropriations Committee)
• A new report by the research organization RAND found that the majority of federal funding to assist military-to-civilian employment transitions goes toward educational benefits rather than helping service members and veterans find work. In 2019, four programs, including the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill and DoD's Tuition Assistance Program, accounted for $13.5 billion out of $14.3 billion in total. Meanwhile, the DoD's Transition Assistance Program received $140 million in funding. But there is not enough evidence to support that federally funded employment transition programs are effective. The study also found that military-to-civilian transition programs have limited oversight.
  (Military-to-civilian transition programs focus on education rather than employment - RAND)
• The Department of Veterans Affairs is staying the course on plans to roll out a new Electronic Health Record. The VA extended its contract with Oracle-Cerner for another 11 months. Both parties agree to come back to the negotiating table each year to renew the multi-billion-dollar contract. The VA and Oracle-Cerner approved a one-month extension in May to continue contract talks. The Defense Department is done with its deployment of the same EHR. But only six VA sites are using it and further rollouts are on hold, as the VA addresses problems at those sites. The VA said it plans to resume go-lives in fiscal 2025.
  (VA awards second option period to Oracle Health in support of Federal Electronic Health Record modernization contract - Department of Veterans Affairs )
• A bill looking to expand fertility treatment coverage in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program has failed to advance to a floor vote. Senate Republicans effectively blocked the Right to IVF Act Thursday afternoon. The legislation, which Democrats introduced last week, did not reach the 60-vote threshold to advance to a floor vote. If passed, the bill would in part increase requirements for carriers in the FEHB program to provide more fertility treatment coverage to enrollees. Even after the bill failed, advocacy groups are calling on the Office of Personnel Management to take it upon itself to make the changes. They want OPM to heighten requirements for FEHB carriers to further cover in-vitro fertilization (IVF) — both medications and treatments.
  (Senate GOP blocks bill to expand IVF access as advocates call for better FEHB coverage - Federal News Network)
• The White House joins a chorus of opposition, including that of Army leadership, to the idea of creating a separate Army drone branch. The White House Office of Management and Budget said creating a separate drone corps will limit the service’s flexibility to deploy drone technology at scale. OMB also said the Army secretary already has the power to create new branches within the service and that creating a separate drone branch through legislation will hinder the Army’s ability to address current and future requirements.
  (White House joins chorus of opposition to Army drone branch idea - White House)
• Oversight processes at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission need some work, according to the Government Accountability Office. Agencies are responsible for managing their own EEO programs for federal workers. But GAO said the commission’s system for tracking those programs does not have guardrails for clearly identifying issues, or making sure decisions are timely. A lack of oversight can lead to challenges in figuring out whether agencies are EEO-compliant. GAO’s new report shows, for instance, that 16 agencies did not have anti-harassment policies in place. The EEOC said its working on enhancing and modernizing its oversight processes.
  (EEOC: Improved oversight processes needed to help agencies address deficiencies - Government Accountability Office)
• A major change to the General Services Administration's schedules program will make it easier for agencies to buy software more like the private sector. GSA will now let agencies pay upfront for software licenses through the schedules program. This change is specifically aimed at making it easier for agencies to buy cloud services, which has been hampered by the Advance Payment Statute, which originated in 1823. The interpretation of the statue required agencies to pay for services in the arrears. The update comes after GSA conducted research and gathered input from agency buyers and vendors last summer.
  (GSA updates rules for buying SaaS off the schedule program - GSA)
• The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation is one step closer to getting new leadership. President Joe Biden nominated Christy Goldsmith Romero, a commissioner at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to lead the FDIC. The current FDIC Chairman says he will step down as soon as a successor is confirmed. An independent report commissioned by the FDIC recently substantiated claims of a toxic workplace culture.
  (Nominations sent to the Senate - White House)

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For federal employees, a bill pending in the Senate would bring expanded coverage of fertility treatments through the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program.

But the Right to IVF Act, which Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.) introduced last week, did not garner the 60 votes needed to move forward with a floor vote Thursday afternoon. Almost all Republicans voted against the measure to advance the legislation, resulting in a 48-47 tally.

The legislation rolls together three previous bills all aiming to improve access and insurance coverage for in-vitro fertilization (IVF). In part, the bill would have impacts specifically on FEHB enrollees. One component of the Right to IVF Act aims to set higher requirements for FEHB carriers to offer IVF coverage.

The Office of Personnel Management increased FEHB carrier requirements for IVF treatments for plan year 2024. But the legislation looks to further extend the requirements of IVF to cover both treatments and medications, as well as expanding to more types of assisted reproductive technology (ART).

The Democrat-led bill currently has 48 cosponsors. Generally, it focuses on establishing broader access to IVF and ART and lowering treatment costs, which without insurance can add up to tens of thousands of dollars in costs.

“Federal workers — myself included — know how expensive paying for IVF out of pocket can be, and the cost has put it out of reach for far too many,” Stacey Young, president of the Department of Justice Gender Equality Network (DOJ GEN), a federal employee advocacy group, told Federal News Network.

The push for a vote on the IVF bill represents a mindset shift toward the presidential campaign now just five months away, the Associated Press reported. Duckworth and other co-sponsors of the bill have said the legislation is also a response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022, and other more recent efforts to limit access to fertility treatments and medications.

“Today, women and families … are worried about what comes next, including the erosion of reproductive freedoms nobody thought were at risk. This includes access to services like IVF,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday on the Senate floor. “The Right to IVF Act establishes a nationwide right to IVF and eliminates barriers for the millions of families looking to use IVF to start and grow a family.”

The Biden administration also came out in support of the legislation and called for its passage.

“The administration looks forward to working with Congress … in order to protect access to fertility services, eliminate barriers for families in need of high-quality, affordable fertility services, and ensure that federal agencies have the resources to implement these benefits,” the Office of Management and Budget wrote in a statement of administrative policy Wednesday.

DOJ GEN has continually called for better federal health care coverage of infertility treatments. The group is one of many stakeholders that pushed for the advancement of the Right to IVF Act in the Senate.

“Supporting this bill should be a no-brainer,” Young told Federal News Network. “Our nation’s public servants should have affordable access to the full range of reproductive health care, including IVF and other forms of assisted reproductive technology.”

But some lawmakers, along with DOJ GEN, have said even without the legislation, OPM should still work to add more coverage for FEHB enrollees. For plan year 2024, OPM already expanded IVF coverage requirements for FEHB carriers to provide, at a minimum, coverage of the cost of drugs related to an IVF procedure for three cycles annually. OPM has also encouraged FEHB carriers to go beyond the minimum requirements — and so far, 24 carriers have done so.

DOJ GEN leaders said they’re grateful for the efforts OPM has made so far in the FEHB requirements. But the advocacy group wants OPM now to take things a step further. DOJ GEN is asking OPM to expand health carrier requirements to cover IVF treatments, on top of medications, for plan year 2025.

“OPM has the opportunity to break new ground again in 2025 by mandating not only coverage of IVF medications, but also medical treatments,” DOJ GEN wrote in a letter to OPM Acting Director Rob Shriver in May. “Medical treatments comprise the lion’s share of the cost of IVF. Many of our members can attest first-hand to the financial strains that paying out of pocket for IVF placed on them. Some had to drain their savings; borrow money from family members; or forgo treatments entirely. Others left DOJ for private-sector jobs that offered full IVF coverage, taking their invaluable skills and institutional knowledge with them.”

OPM declined to comment on whether there were any plans underway to further expand coverage requirements for IVF in the health insurance program. But some federal health experts have said with just a few months before Open Season, it’s likely too late to expand the coverage as early as plan year 2025 — though it would be possible in future health plan years.

Betsy Campbell, chief engagement officer at national infertility association RESOLVE, said the calls for better insurance coverage of fertility treatments have been growing.

“We know that hundreds of federal employees have been reaching out to OPM to request this coverage, and we’ve started to see some progress with OPM,” Campbell said in an interview with Federal News Network. “The next step is actually adding the medical procedure of IVF. So we’re hopeful that OPM will listen to their employees and add this highly desired benefit.”

RESOLVE has also been encouraging the adoption of a more inclusive definition of infertility that would help LGBTQ+ employees as well as unpartnered individuals access IVF and other fertility benefits through FEHB — but she said the efforts should go beyond simply updating the definition.

“There appears to still be some work, because donor sperm and donor eggs aren’t necessarily covered by all the plans,” Campbell said. “And that, of course, is needed by same-sex couples and non-partnered people when building their families. It’s one thing to have an inclusive definition, but you also have to cover the elements that are needed for these communities to build their families as well.”

A 2021 survey from Mercer, in partnership with RESOLVE, found that a vast majority of employers that increased fertility treatment coverage and benefits did not see a significant increase in medical plan costs.

Additionally, Campbell said, these types of benefit adjustments can significantly impact recruitment and retention of employees.

“You don’t want to provide yet another reason for them to leave federal employment to go to a private employer that is providing fertility benefits,” Campbell said. “Often employers don’t realize there’s a gap in this coverage until it’s pointed out. I think we’re seeing OPM trying to fill this gap piece by piece … Now it’s time to also cover these medically necessary procedures to help their employees build their families.”

The post Senate GOP blocks bill to expand IVF access as advocates call for better FEHB coverage first appeared on Federal News Network.

But beyond hammering out agency budgets for next year, the GOP-led House Appropriations Committee has tacked on several policy riders that could impact federal employees and retirees in other ways as well.

One policy rider included in the committee’s report language, for instance, would bar any investments through the Thrift Savings Plan that are based on environmental, social or governance (ESG) criteria.

House Republicans also tried last budget cycle to include the “No ESG in the TSP” policy rider in the spending legislation, but it ultimately did not end up in the final appropriations package.

The launch of the voluntary TSP mutual fund window in June 2022 brought more than 5,000 new mutual fund options to TSP participants who choose to enroll in the window and pay a fee for the service. But the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board has said if an anti-ESG policy is enacted, it would bring the TSP’s new mutual fund window to an early demise.

Keeping track of 5,000 mutual funds would become too burdensome and open FRTIB to potential legal exposure, the board has said.

“There is no practical, cost-efficient way to monitor each of the roughly 5,000 individual mutual funds’ holdings,” FRTIB Director of External Affairs Kim Weaver said in 2023.

FRTIB has publicly opposed the provisions that aim to bar ESG investments. Weaver has also said there would be ripple effects from the provision, if it’s enacted. It would cost the TSP additional money to wind down the mutual fund window, and TSP participants may be exposed to potential financial losses if they had to transfer their investments back to the main TSP funds.

Appropriations committee members plan to mark up the financial services and general government 2025 spending bill, as well as several others, on Thursday afternoon. Here are some of the other policy riders federal employees should pay attention to:

Telework, office space in 2025 spending bill

In the report language, committee members also noted previous and upcoming requirements for the Office of Management and Budget and the General Services Administration to report to Congress on federal telework and office space.

In the 2024 enacted appropriations package, lawmakers included a now-approaching deadline for OMB to share all agencies’ work environment plans with Congress. Those plans, which stem from the initial return-to-office memo in April 2023, detail agencies’ recent telework policy changes.

OMB’s deadline to submit all agencies’ return-to-office plans to Congress is coming up in late June.

“The committee looks forward to receiving the report from OMB on governmentwide telework,” House appropriators wrote in the committee’s report. “The committee [also] expects agencies under the jurisdiction of the subcommittee to reduce their office footprint if their average office space utilization rate is less than 60%, based on a benchmark of 150 usable square feet per person.”

At the same time, the committee said GSA has not yet provided its required report on how agencies can reduce office space requirements based on lessons learned from using telework during the COVID–19 pandemic.

The federal footprint has been steadily declining, but agencies still holding onto excess and underutilized office space is a main reason the Government Accountability Office has kept federal real property management on its High-Risk List for over 20 years.

In the 2024 spending package, Congress called on all agencies with an office space utilization rate of less than 60% to submit a description of their current efforts to reduce their physical footprint, the total office space costs, the average utilization rate and the estimated cost of underutilized space.

If enacted, the 2025 spending bill from House appropriators would also give GSA and OMB a new 180-day deadline to offer further data and recommendations on how to best consolidate federal office space, while disposing of unneeded federal real estate.

Continuing a few longstanding provisions

In addition to the slate of new policy riders, House appropriators are also looking to maintain numerous provisions that have been around for years, and in some cases decades. Many of those provisions have become practically standard in spending bills each fiscal year.

For example, one continued provision requires agencies to pay OPM a fee for processing retirement claims for employees who separate early from federal service.

Another would continue to direct agency employees to use official time — or time spent working on union-related activities while on the job — in “an honest effort to perform official duties,” the committee report language said.

Additionally, a provision often referred to as the Hyde amendment would maintain the current ban on any government funding from going toward abortions through the Federal Employees Health Benefits (FEHB) program.

IRS pilot, FBI headquarters and more

The full appropriations committee also maintained several provisions from the subcommittee’s initial 2025 spending and policy proposals earlier this month.

Notably, the committee plans to implement steep spending cuts for the IRS, and aims to completely defund IRS’ free Direct File platform.

The lawmakers are also looking to decline a $3.5 billion request for construction on the new FBI headquarters building during 2025. The appropriations bill would also withhold all current funds allocated for the GSA construction project.

Democrat committee members, unsurprisingly, have come out in strong opposition to the spending cuts and many of the policy riders. Some lawmakers said they’re concerned about the ability of several relatively small agencies to handle large budget cuts. Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) warned last week that the House GOP bill would force agencies to implement staff reductions to make ends meet.

The post Policy riders to watch as House appropriators mark up 2025 spending bills first appeared on Federal News Network.

Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation leaders say employees are suffering from low morale, and that the agency is facing long-term recruitment challenges, as it deals with reports of a toxic workplace environment.

Officials overseeing reforms at FDIC told members of the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday that the agency needs a “fresh start,” after an independent investigation substantiated claims of a toxic workplace.

Jonathan McKernan, co-chair of a special committee FDIC created to oversee an independent review of the agency’s workplace culture, said FDIC employees are “exhausted and distracted,” and face a “significant headwind” to do their jobs.

“We need a fresh start sooner rather than later. That’s important to establish credibility. It’s important to bring in someone that has a moral authority to really push change. And it’s important that we have clean hands to deal with our legacy issues,” McKernan said.

Lawmakers, however, are casting doubts on FDIC’s ability to implement workplace reforms with FDIC Chairman Martin Gruenberg remaining on the job.

Gruenberg said last month he’ll stay at FDIC until the Senate confirms his successor. But Committee Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) is calling on President Joe Biden to fire him immediately, and allow an acting chairperson to take over.

“There’s a clear succession plan in place. The agency’s operations would continue unabated if you rightfully stepped down today,” McHenry said.

Gruenberg has held leadership positions at FDIC for nearly 20 years.

An independent report into FDIC’s workplace culture said Gruenberg’s longstanding tenure at the agency “may hinder his ability to establish trust and confidence in leading meaningful culture change.”

“For these challenges to be overcome, there must at least be a genuine and sustained commitment to lead a culture change, accompanied by a recognition and acknowledgement that such change is necessary because of failings of the past, including his own,” the report states.

FDIC created a special committee to oversee an independent review of FDIC’s workplace culture, following several reports in the Wall Street Journal in November 2023.

Last month, FDIC publicly released a report led by the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton.

The report includes cases of stalking, harassment, homophobia and other violations of employment regulations, based on more than 500 complaints from employees.

According to the Associated Press, an FDIC employee told investigators she was stalked by a coworker and faced harassment, even after complaining about his behavior.

The report also mentions a supervisor in a field office referring to gay men as “little girls,” and a female field examiner who said she received pictures of a senior examiner’s private parts.

Michael Hsu, co-chair of FDIC’s special committee, said the report found Gruenberg was “not cited as a root cause” of the FDIC’s problems.

Joon Kim, a partner at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, said women and minorities working at FDIC were more often the targets of misconduct in a workplace that he described as “patriarchal or insular.”

McKernan said the report demonstrated biases “in favor of the male workforce.”

The White House says Gruenberg will step down once a successor is appointed and that President Joe Biden will name a replacement soon.

Biden has yet to submit a new nominee to lead FDIC, but several lawmakers said Wednesday that Biden intends to nominate Christy Goldsmith Romero, commissioner of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, to serve as FDIC chairwoman.

White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Wednesday that she had no update on Biden’s nominee.

“We understand how important it is to have an FDIC chair in place. So we’re going to certainly stay laser-focused on getting that done,” Jean-Pierre said.

With an unclear timeline of when FDIC would get a new permanent leader,
McKernan told lawmakers he’s “not particularly optimistic we’ll see accountability soon.”

“I think there’s a real question here, that we at the board need to consider, during this interim when we’re waiting for a new chair or we’re waiting for the current chair to resign, and have the acting chair. I think the board needs to take a more active role here and I have been pushing for that,” he said.

‘Morale is bad’

FDIC currently ranks 25 out of 26 midsize agencies on the Best Places to Work in the Federal Government scorecard tracked by the Partnership for Public Service.

“Morale is bad,” McKernan said. “We were near the top for quite some time. I think it’s fair to say that staff have seen no real accountability, so it’s hard to see much commitment to change, absent that accountability. I think it’s fair to say that there’s a lot of skepticism, even cynicism about prospects at the FDIC.”

McKernan described flagging morale within FDIC’s workforce, and that the agency faces recruitment and retention challenges.

“I think also going forward longer term, the state of affairs at the FDIC, if not fixed are going to be a real problem for retention and recruitment of new staff and that will be fatal to our ability to achieve our mission if we can’t fix that,” he said.

FDIC is dealing with these persistent workforce issues amid a growing workload. The agency reported last month that 63 banks are on the brink of insolvency.

“Distraction certainly does not help,” McKernan said.

Kim said a hotline that third-party investigators received over 500 calls from individuals, “emotionally recounting experiences of sexual harassment, discrimination, and other interpersonal misconduct that they had suffered at the FCIC.”

“Those who reported incidents to us expressed fear, sadness and anger at what they had to endure. Many had never reported their experiences to anyone before, while others had reported internally and had been left disappointed by the FDIC’s response,” Kim said. “Virtually all of them expressed hope that reporting what they had gone through to us might help change and make better the agency that they cared about deeply.”

Kim told lawmakers that FDIC’s workplace culture issues were longstanding and “have spanned for many years across different chairs.”

Abena Mainoo, a partner at the law firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, said that FDIC received 92 harassment complaints between 2015 and 2023, but that those complaints only led to suspensions in two cases.

“We found that far too many employees, and for too long, the FDIC has failed to provide a workplace safe from sexual harassment, discrimination and other interpersonal misconduct,” Mainoo said. “We also found that a patriarchal, hierarchic and insular culture helped create the conditions that allowed such misconduct to occur and persist.”

‘Broken’ internal reporting

Among FDIC’s plans for reform, Hsu said the agency is addressing employees’ fear of retaliation, implementing structural changes, and ensuring the board and senior management are held accountable “for doing what’s necessary to make the FDIC a safe and inclusive workplace.”

“The employees of the FDIC need and deserve a safe and inclusive workplace and they need it now,” Hsu said.

Hsu said the FDIC is in the process of replacing a “broken” internal processing for responding to reports of harassment. The new structure will bypass management hierarchies and instead redirect complaints to third-party investigators.

Hsu said FDIC is also hiring an independent “transformation monitor” to hold the agency accountable for following through on its plans to reform the agency.

An inspector general survey of FDIC employees in 2019 found that 8% of respondents said they experienced sexual harassment at the agency between January 2015 and April 2018.

However, FDIC’s Corporate Human Resources Information System (CHRIS) documented only two cases of sexual harassment and only seven cases of sexual harassment between 2008 and 2021.

Mainoo said the investigation found “no reason to believe the CHRIS database was complete.”

Since the report’s release, FDIC’s human resources office has launched a system that tracks different types of interpersonal misconduct.

“It allows the FDIC to identify sexual harassment, for example, compared to a hostile work environment, and also identifies whether misconduct falls under FDIC’s anti-harassment program, which the records before did not do,” Mainoo said.

The post ‘Morale is bad’ across FDIC workforce after reports of toxic workplace culture first appeared on Federal News Network.

Colleen Heller-Stein, formerly deputy CHCO at the Treasury Department, has stepped in as executive director of the CHCO Council, Federal News Network has learned. The senior-level position within the Office of Personnel Management leads agency CHCOs and other human capital leaders to innovate on best practices for managing the recruitment and retention of the federal workforce.

Heller-Stein is the first career federal executive to serve in the CHCO Council leadership role. She took over the position a few weeks ago from Latonia Page, who had been working as acting executive director of the CHCO Council since September 2023. Prior to Page’s time on the job, Margot Conrad — currently deputy chief of staff at OPM — served as the council’s executive director for about two and a half years.

Before taking on the role of leading the CHCO Council, Heller-Stein worked for 14 years at the Treasury Department. In addition to her experience as Treasury’s deputy CHCO, she previously served as the agency’s director of HR, as well as taking on a one-and-a-half-year stint as acting Treasury CHCO. Before moving to Treasury, Heller-Stein held various other roles in state and federal government, including working at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Government Publishing Office and Department of Veterans Affairs.

“As the former deputy CHCO and acting CHCO of a large, cabinet-level agency, I recognize the important role of the council as a collaborative resource and connective tissue for the largest and most complex workforce in the country,” Heller-Stein said in a statement to Federal News Network. “I look forward to working alongside human capital leaders across the federal government to support and strengthen the federal workforce.”

The CHCO Council, composed of federal human capital leaders from many major agencies, has been around now for more than 21 years. The council routinely convenes the senior leaders across government to discuss trends and strategies for improving the federal workforce through recruitment, retention and more. In May 2023, the council celebrated its 20th anniversary during a ceremony at OPM headquarters in Washington, D.C.

In recent years, the CHCO Council has focused on replicating and scaling up promising practices in agency recruitment and retention, including pooled hiring, shared certificates, skills-based recruitment and reducing time-to-hire for prospective job candidates.

The post Treasury’s Heller-Stein stepping in to lead the CHCO Council first appeared on Federal News Network.

It may be employees at the LaClare Family Creamery, a goat cheese manufacturer in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, that Republican Congressman Glenn Grothman passes by on his way home.

Or it may be the folks at the Old World Creamery, a family-owned food manufacturer located in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, which has been around since 1912.

No matter which of the many cheese factories in his home district of which Rep. Grothman was referring to, he seems to believe federal employees and employees who manufacture cheese have a lot in common.

“When I go home at night, [and this] is kind of a stereotype, but I got Wisconsin, I got all these cheese factories [that] I drive by depending upon which way I go home. They were all packed, even at one o’clock in the morning. So I just want to emphasize that I think, in many private sector jobs, they were showing up at work in the teeth of the [pandemic]. It’s time that we should be back to where we want to be,” Grothman said at the April 30 Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing.

Not sure if you knew this, but the cheese industry has been very important to Sheboygan County since the 1870s.

The same can’t be said for federal agencies. In fact, the Office of Personnel Management doesn’t list cheese or any specific food manufacturer in their list of job series. There is 7401 – General Food Preparation and Serving that includes cooking, bartending and even meat cutting, but sadly nothing about cheese.

Grothman was trying to make a point about federal employees needing to return to the office, but his analogy, like most from lawmakers, fell flat.

Just like Sen. Joni Ernst’s (R-Iowa) jab at federal employees back in April.

“Every day is ‘Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day’ when tens of thousands of bureaucrats are working from home,” Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), posted on X on April 16, which happened to be National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day.

Did Ernst know about some sort of “off the books” celebration at the Neal Smith Federal Building in Des Moines, Iowa, which includes 800 federal employees from more than 40 agencies, who were all wearing their pajamas to work?

By the way, did you know National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day started in 2004, by Pajamagram as a reward for the late nights working on taxes. If you are keeping score, the 2025 National Wear Your Pajamas to Work Day is April 6.

But I digress, the return-to-office debate continues to boil over. Republicans continue to criticize federal employees and the Biden administration for what they see as waste and abuse.

No one size fits all for return to office policy

Democrats and the Office of Management and Budget are defending agency leadership to make decisions for how often federal employees need to come into the office based on what’s best for their agency’s mission.

Brian Elliott, executive advisor around the future of work and an expert on workplace culture, said both sides are missing the point and talking past each other.

“I think a big part of this is what you’re getting, is there’s no one size fits all for this because different jobs and different roles have different requirements. They always have and they always will,” Elliott said in an interview with Federal News Network. “The private sector has been grappling with this for a while too, and I work with companies that have a wide range of practices. But they figured out the moments that matter for a sales team are different than those for an engineering team or a finance team. But you would never apply one uniform set of rules to everybody and expect it’s actually going to work the same.”

Exactly why Grothman’s cheese manufacturer analogy or Ernst’s comments on what federal employees are wearing are the type of comments that rankle so many people and stops the real discussion from happening.

First off, as Jason Miller, the deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget, told lawmakers at the April 30 hearing four different times, over half of the federal workforce can’t telework because of their job responsibilities. That means more than a million federal employees — those who protect the border, secure the airports, inspect food and provide medical care to veterans at hospitals — are commuting, most likely are wearing business clothes — though hospital scrubs could be considered pajama-like — and working outside of their homes.

Miller said of the remaining 40% to 49% of employees working in everything from technology to human resources to processing tax returns or disability forms, about 80% of them are in the office at least half the time, which equates roughly to two-to-three times a week.

But just like before the pandemic, just being in the office doesn’t necessarily mean work is getting done.

Gauging productivity remains difficult

Elliott said it’s this reason and the concept of work being what you do, not where you do it, is why public and private sector employers have to change how they gauge productivity. He said this new view is a struggle no matter what sector you are in.

“We have to stop trying to measure activity, stop trying to measure the number of days a week somebody shows up, or the number of keystrokes they hit, and start figuring out what outcomes you’re trying to drive,” he said. “With most organizations, when we get deeper into this, you realize that you might be able to define productivity for a subset of the jobs, like customer service, which is one that you can usually put a yardstick against. You can measure quantity of output and quality of output. But you can do that regardless of where the human being is doing that customer support. It literally does not matter. But other work is much more complex. The important stuff is interdisciplinary, cross functional in nature, complicated problem solving and really hard to put a yardstick on.”

Elliott pointed to a story from an executive at the National Science Foundation who said the number of grant applications that came in peaked during the pandemic, but they were able to serve them just as well during that time period.

The focus, he said, is what is driving mission outcomes, not “sweating telework classifications” or other meaningless proof points.

“We’re very used to communicating, collaborating, doing work and even building relationships online. I have talked with senior agency leaders who will talk about the fact that the people above them, in the appointment suites as well, aren’t in the tools that their teams are using on a day in, day out basis. If your only familiarity with the digital tools your teams use is the occasional Teams call or Zoom call, and you’re not in Teams or Slack itself, watching the work happen, then it’s not surprising that when you come back into an office space and you don’t see a lot of activity, you’re then worried, are they really working?” Elliott said. “The same thing has happened in the private sector. The thing that I’ve done with a number of executives is literally show them how these tools work. We get into it enough so that they feel comfortable, so they can actually see the work that’s happening, that otherwise they’re missing out on. There’s definitely a transition here that has to do with generational differences in how we communicate.”

Elliott said it’s more than just using communication and collaboration tools. It’s the transformation across many sectors and in many offices that occurred over the last four years.

Fairness doctrine, not really fair

He said this entire discussion comes back to this core issue of how do agencies or companies know if their employees are really working if they’re not physically in an environment where they can monitor them and put my eyeballs on them?

“That is the least effective way of measuring productivity and outcome that exists. It’s an input-driven mechanism. The equivalent would be if I’m going to put keystroke monitors on people’s laptops because the way that they actually produce something is through typing. So once you measure the number of keystrokes, you can go on Amazon.com and buy a mouse jiggler for $25, stick it into the side of your laptop and it will keep your mouse active for eight hours a day or however many hours you want to. And you can actually program in the number of pauses you want it to have. These systems can easily be gamed. You’re much better off instrumenting outcome driven metrics on top of this,” Elliott said.

Elliott added the other side of the argument is often referred to as the “fairness doctrine.” He said what’s fair to office workers should be what’s fair to frontline employees. But Elliott said that so-called doctrine is faulty.

“Frontline workers have to show up on the front line, and office workers don’t have to, and some will say that is unfair. There is an equality versus equity set of things that’s happening within this though. We already pay office workers more than we do frontline workers. That’s been true for eons,” he said. “What it’s really about is how do I attract workers for what is often the hardest jobs to fill these days? It’s those call center jobs. It is the fact that you’re investing a different type of flexibility for those workers, not just work location, which you can’t always give them, but flexible schedules. Giving people the ability to swap shifts, giving people flexibility when it comes to how many shifts they take per week, helps you attract more people into those jobs and retain them. What you’re after is, can I measure how good a job they’re doing at delivering for my customers? Not that they show up.”

That gets us back to the land of cheese and whining. If Grothman, and other lawmakers, want to make sure federal employees are using taxpayers’ money appropriately, serving citizens effectively and not abusing their privilege of working from home, they should demand to see the data and hold agency leaders accountable for meeting mission-focused goals. The workplace has changed, the remote work cork isn’t going back in the bottle, so both supporters and detractors should stop arguing over what was or used to be, and focus on measuring agency mission success in serving citizens.

Nearly Useless Factoid

By Michele Sandiford

The term “telecommuting” was first coined in 1972 by Jack Nilles. At that time, Nilles was working remotely on a complex NASA communication system.

Source: Allied Telcom

The post Whine, cheese make the return-to-office debate pungent first appeared on Federal News Network.

A group of former senior officials is making a new and near last-ditch call to action aiming to prevent the possible resurrection of the controversial Schedule F executive order from the Trump administration.

The five former national security officials, who sent a letter to congressional committee leaders Thursday, are approaching the years-long Schedule F debate with what has been a steadily growing angle: They proposed a middle-ground answer to the question of federal workforce accountability.

Along with warning of what they said would be a dangerous return of Schedule F, the former officials are calling on Congress to enact specific reforms to modernize the civil service. One of their goals is to hold federal employees more accountable — the same goal the Trump administration said was the intent of Schedule F. But unlike Schedule F, the group’s recommendations would maintain merit system principles and long-standing job protections for federal workers.

“We contend that the Congress must forever preclude anything that has the potential to make partisan political loyalty the litmus test, whether express or implied, for any personnel action affecting a federal career civil servant, including senior career executives,” the former officials wrote in the letter to committee leaders. “However, at the same time, we believe that the Congress must also dramatically simplify the well-intentioned but too-cumbersome, too-attenuated and too-complicated processes that we are currently forced use to hold those same civil servants accountable.”

Former CIA Director Mike Hayden, former Homeland Security Deputy Secretary James Loy, former Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, former Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and former Navy Secretary Sean O’Keefe — all senior officials during previous Republican administrations — signed the letter.

“We believe that our career federal civil servants must be accountable to the American people and those that are elected to represent them,” the group wrote. “But while that core principle is essential to the effective functioning of our democratic system of government, it is in desperate need of reform and modernization.”

Schedule F, a now-overturned Trump administration executive order that aimed to reclassify some federal employees to make them at-will workers and easier to fire, has recently gained more attention. Former Trump administration officials have been revisiting plans to revive a new policy akin to Schedule F, should the presidential election go in their favor.

The urgent call to action from the former officials is far from the only effort various stakeholders have made in the months leading up to the presidential election this fall. Separate from the letter, a new working group has recently stepped up on the topic of Schedule F as well. The group, composed mainly of academics and former public sector executives, outlined five areas — agility, accountability, collaboration, outcomes and capacity — that the next administration should focus on for creating lasting civil service reform.

“The ideas put out by Project 2025 and Schedule F are certainly worth considering. But we think that they’re the wrong solutions to the problems that we’ve got,” Don Kettl, former dean of the University of Maryland’s School of Public Policy, and a leader of the working group, said in an interview. “What we wanted to do was to put together an alternative set of ideas from across the political spectrum as an alternative to think about what it is that we might be able to do to make government more efficient, more effective and ultimately more responsive.”

Moving away from a ‘status quo’

In the letter to Congress on Thursday, the former national security officials said while they don’t believe Schedule F is the answer, they also don’t want to continue what they said is the “status quo” for federal employee accountability. The group recommended striking a balance that takes action to fix the problems, while avoiding the reenactment Schedule F.

“The blueprints proffered by both sides of the political aisle are problematic,” the group wrote in the letter. “One side is firmly rooted in a status quo that inadvertently impedes accountability, while the other, if implemented, may end up politicizing the very civil servants we all want to be politically neutral.”

Ron Sanders, former chairman of the Federal Salary Council appointed by former President Donald Trump, resigned from his position in 2020 in direct response to the Schedule F executive order. For the last several months, Sanders has been working with former officials to create a plan of action to recommend to Congress. Although only five Republican former officials signed the letter to Congress this week, Sanders said the group is bipartisan and much larger.

“They’ve all had to deal with poorly performing or misbehaving employees, and they know how hard that is,” Sanders said in an interview. “They don’t think politicizing the civil service is the answer. They don’t think political loyalty should be the criterion. But they also think [the current system] is too hard.”

The letter comes just as House and Senate lawmakers are taking up the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The group said the NDAA is the best, most likely vehicle that can propel forward the proposals in the short-term.

“In part because that’s the only ‘must-pass’ bill likely to move this session — but also because, in theory, those are the committees that worry about national security, and the former officials have said this is a national security issue,” Sanders said.

Last week, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) introduced a bipartisan amendment to the 2025 NDAA that would in effect prevent a presidential administration from creating Schedule F or a similar type of excepted employee classification.

At this point in the process for the 2025 NDAA, any further changes to the legislation would have to come from a Congress member introducing a floor amendment. NARFE National President William Shackelford urged lawmakers to move Connolly’s amendment to a floor vote.

“It is clearly germane to the NDAA due to its application to DoD civilian employees, 700,000 of whom make up more than a third of the federal workforce,” Shackelford said in a June 4 letter. “Moreover, past NDAAs have routinely included governmentwide federal workforce provisions due to their impact on the DoD civilian workforce.”

A spokeswoman for House Oversight and Accountability Committee Democrats declined to comment on whether any committee members had plans to introduce an amendment on the floor related to the further civil service reform recommendations in the letter. But she expressed agreement with the intentions of the former officials.

“[We] agree with this impressive bipartisan group of public servants that public service must be based on qualifications and merit, not political fealty,” the spokeswoman said in a statement to Federal News Network. “Wholesale firing of federal experts who use data, science and law to improve federal government is not acceptable. We hope our Republican counterparts will join Democrats in discussions to revitalize and improve the federal workforce rather than blindly following Trump into causing irreparable harm to essential government services.”

The approach to civil service reform

In the letter sent Thursday, the former officials proposed to Congress a three-part approach to both block Schedule F and create a more efficient way to manage the accountability of federal employees.

The first part of the proposal recommended modernizing the performance management system of federal workers. Simplifying and expediting the adverse action process, the former officials said, would make it easier and faster to hold federal employees accountable, while still maintaining merit-based protections.

Part of the problem, Sanders said, is how long it can take to resolve employees’ cases with the often-lengthy appeals process.

“On taking an adverse action, on appealing it and on adjudicating it — everybody, I think, can agree there need to be time limits, so that the system moves along,” Sanders said.

Another component of the group’s proposal focuses specifically on keeping national security, intelligence and law enforcement positions free from what they said is partisan influence.

“For example, you may want to consider a statutory ban on any measure that potentially threatens to undermine those merit-based principles,” the former officials wrote.

And lastly, the group proposed instating periodic reviews of the balance between political appointees and career civil servants in the Defense Department, as well as other national security and intelligence agencies.

After President Joe Biden repealed the Schedule F executive order in early 2021, the Biden administration took further action to try to hedge against the policy’s return in a future administration. In April, the Office of Personnel Management finalized a rule aiming to reinforce worker protections for the classes of federal employees that Schedule F targeted.

It’s one of the strongest steps possible from an administration, but James Sherk, former special assistant to the President on the White House domestic policy council, and the policy lead on the original Schedule F executive order, said OPM’s final rule would not stop a future administration from reviving a similar policy down the road.

In May, Acting OPM Director Rob Shriver defended the agency’s final rule and warned Oversight committee lawmakers that the return of Schedule F would have a “chilling effect” on career federal employees.

The new recommendations from the former officials somewhat diverge from other views from some federal unions and advocacy groups that have said the government’s performance management system is not broken, and that instead focus more on maintaining the protections for employees that Schedule F sought to remove.

But strategically, Sanders said, the approach to preventing a return of Schedule F may be to take a “positive” action rather than simply trying to ban Schedule F from coming back. For instance, he said, even when Democrats held the majority in both the House and Senate, they were unable to pass legislation aiming to block Schedule F’s return in a future administration. Instead, a better path may be to try to enact legislation akin to OPM’s final rule.

“I’m not sure an outright, overt ban is going to prevail,” Sanders said. “But you could do something like the OPM rule, which in law would make it almost impossible to hire or fire somebody on the basis of their political ideology.”

With just months before the presidential election coming this fall, the clock is ticking for Congress to take action and find a possible compromise to civil service reform and on the topic of Schedule F.

“That’s the reason why we are rushing. If Biden wins, it’s status quo, they don’t have to change anything. If Trump wins, it’s Schedule F and Project 2025,” Sanders said. “Republicans are going to have to give on Schedule F. Democrats are going to have to give on accountability. But our main objective is to just get people talking publicly about this instead of hiding behind the two extremes.”

The post Former senior officials join rising calls for an alternative to Schedule F first appeared on Federal News Network.

Some agencies have been piloting neurodiversity initiatives in recent years, but the entire federal government now has a playbook to help find talent and create opportunities for people with autism and other neurodivergent conditions.

In May, the University of Washington, MITRE and DC-based nonprofit Melwood released the Neurodiversity@Work Playbook: Federal Edition. Teresa Thomas, MITRE’s program lead for neurodiverse talent enablement, said the playbook should help federal agencies with questions about how to establish workforce practices that embrace neurodiversity.

“It is a tool for agencies that really want to think through neuro-inclusion in a systemic sort of way,” Thomas said in an interview. “And to give them the tools that they need to know what to ask, to know who [and] to ask to know where to go. And to remind them of the things they need to not forget.”

The authors of the playbook also say agencies can help fill workforce gaps by adopting more inclusive hiring practices. Scott Gibson, Melwood’s chief strategy officer, said that the federal workforce is getting older. And federal agencies are struggling to recruit talent, particularly in technical areas like cybersecurity.

“I want everybody to embrace the moral imperatives of the playbook and the desire for a more inclusive world, but in practical terms, I want our government to recognize that this is really a good government imperative,” Gibson told Federal News Network. “We have to start taking bold action if we want to solve these challenges.”

Hala Annabi, an associate professior in the University of Washington Information School, authored the original “Autism@Work Playbook” released in 2019. She said the federal government is positioned to drive better neurodiversity practices across the country.

“The federal government is the largest employer in the U.S.,” Annabi said in a Q&A posted on the University of Washington’s website. “Imagine creating effective pathways and several employment models that work. If we continue to build models and pathways within the largest employer and adapt them across all federal agencies, imagine the potential for employment opportunities. So that’s one. It can open doors for employing this grossly underserved community of neurodivergent people.”

“Neurodiversity” is an umbrella term that broadly refers to differences in brain functioning. Autism, attention-deficit/hyperactive disorder, and dyslexia are among the most common examples of “neurodivergent” conditions.

Neurodivergent individuals make up a growing segment of the workforce, but many are unemployed or underemployed due to barriers in traditional recruitment and selection processes, according to the playbook. For example, neurodivergent candidates can be overlooked during the interview process due to “differences in how the candidate communicates, interacts socially, processes information, or moves their body,” the guide explains.

The National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency became the first federal agency to launch a neurodiversity pilot in late 2020. NGA is now building on the pilot program with plans to hire a new cohort of neurodivergent individuals this year. The agency is also embedding its neurodiversity efforts more broadly into its persons with disabilities program.

Thomas said the playbook is informed by NGA’s experience, as well as an ongoing pilot at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.

“Especially the things those agencies had to navigate to get there in the first place – what kind of questions were being asked of them? What kind of things did they have to think through? What kind of problems were they going to have to overcome? Who do they need to champion? How did they get that support that they needed?” Thomas said.

Early on, NGA and other pilot agencies have faced questions about the funding necessary to set up a program, as well as the legality of neurodiverse hiring efforts.

The 106-page playbook helps agencies address those questions. It takes them through the multiple stages of a neurodiversity program, from planning and developing the business case, through interviews, training, onboarding, and retention practices.

“I think another question that it answers that people don’t often think to ask is, where does this go? What are we aiming at?” Thomas added. “Because we can get really hyper focused on the shiny box, on the little pilot that we can all point to, which is great, really important tool, because it makes things happen. But we just think about getting that program built. And we don’t think about, what does this mean for organization systemically? How does this change who we are? How does this become something we don’t have to think about down the road? It’s just part of the way we do things.”

A key practice emphasized throughout the playbook is engaging the neurodiverse individuals who are already working at the agency. Gibson said NGA saw success in having its existing neurodivergent employees help lead the establishment of the pilot.

“It wasn’t the recruitment office looking to solve a challenge,” Gibson said. “People who raised their hand and were willing to volunteer that they were neuro distinct, had a say in how that program was able to be developed. They were also able to raise issues of concern that they were facing within the workforce. So I start there as a best practice. You’ve got to listen to your existing employees. We know that neurodivergent individuals exist within the federal workforce.”

The post Federal neurodiversity playbook pushes inclusive hiring, retention practices first appeared on Federal News Network.

The annual list of best places to work in the federal government is out, looked over, digested. We know the agencies, but what goes on inside that makes for the best, and less-than-best places? To find out, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin  talked with long-time federal management observer, union president, and professor Bob Tobias.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin Bob, as a student of management yourself, and also a professor of it, let me run this postulate by you. And that is, if you look at the scores, the smaller the unit measured, the wider the scores range. Which I interpret as all management all sense of engagement with your agency is local, with your particular manager and leadership, bureau or officer agency. Fair?

Bob Tobias I think it’s basically fair, Tom. Because really why this whole exercise is so important, is because engagement is so important. The more a leader, at whatever level, is engaged with those lead, the more engaged they are, the more productive they are. And there’s no question about that. The more engaged they are, the more productive they are. So engagement, I believe, is a block by block by block building inside of a larger environment. And if all of those blocks cumulatively are on the right track, you have NASA, you have [Government Accountability Office (GAO)], you have agencies who have a culture of creating engagement between those they lead, and those lead.

Tom Temin And it seems that then the crucial point there is the training and engagement of the line of the supervisors, locally, because secretaries come and go, deputy directors for management to come and go, and these types of people come and go, because they’re politically appointed. And it seems to not have that much bearing on the scores, because the top agencies seem to be fairly persistent year after year. Which means it’s not political leadership, it’s really the determinant.

Bob Tobias Well, I think a top level leader does have a real impact, because they’re the ones who are saying, I want you to spend time leading. The greatest reason for failure of leaders in the federal sector, is because they continue to do as opposed to make time to lead. So if I’m at the top, I can say stop doing, start leading. And I think that’s an important part, in addition to the training, providing them training on how to create that environment of engagement. So if you could think Tom, of the supervisor, who you most valued in your career, the one you most valued in your career. And then imagine an agency like NASA, where the vast majority are those kinds of leaders, you have an idea of what it takes to make an agency number one, and more importantly, to stay number one, because they improve every single year. So these leaders, at all levels, have make an effort to speak authentically with those they lead. So they say, Hey, I don’t know. I don’t know the answer. They strive to create trust so that they can behave collaboratively as opposed to competitively they spend their time providing feedback, not just annually, or quarterly, but every single day about what’s going well, and what’s not going well. They spend time to know the person they are leading so they can help them. They can provide developmental assignments, they can challenge them. So if you live in that kind of an environment, engagement is possible.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Bob Tobias, former professor in the Key Executive Leadership Program at American University. So what I’m hearing your you say is that, yes, it’s important for supervisors to know what the work is, know what’s involved, but they shouldn’t be so caught up in doing their own tasks that they can therefore have the time to learn management strategies, such as understanding people, listening to people, giving the guidance and so on.

Bob Tobias That’s right. Most people grow up in a command and control environment. Their families are command and control. There’s no, when you’re a kid, your old man tells you what to do. So then when your first job you work at McDonald’s, it’s how many burgers you flip per minute. Nobody’s asking you how you might flip the burgers better. So we grow up in a command and control environment. But when we’re working in the federal government, which is facing incredibly challenging problems, we need collaboration, not command and control. And those agencies who are at the top have a collaborative work environment.

Tom Temin So if I’m a top level senior executive, or an appointee, it is my resolve to get my scores up for engagement for Best Places to Work rankings. And in the Federal Employee Viewpoint Scores, which are the source of the data for the best places to work. What should I do?

Bob Tobias Well, it’s kind of interesting. [Department of Homeland Security (DHS)] has been at the bottom forever. I wish I knew how much money had been spent by DHS on getting consulting advice. And as you might imagine, much money is spent gathering data and providing, you should do a you should do B, you should do C, and then it gets ignored. I asked my students, often in every class, I’d say, All right, here’s your score and your agency, what five things would you pledge to do differently? What five behaviors would you pledge to change in order to increase your score? Most, if not all, supervisors asked that question. If they’re the least bit reflective, would be able to say what they need to do to increase their score. So I think that agencies who want to increase their score have to start at the bottom, instead of at the top. They have to start with the bottom and encourage those leaders to take accountability and responsibility for changing their behavior in order to increase their score.

Tom Temin And also maybe do a little data analysis of your FEVS, and find out if there are maybe certain groups or certain classes of employees that are uniformly good, giving good scores, or uniformly giving bad scores that can give you clues as to where strengths and weaknesses are.

Bob Tobias Yes. NASA is really, really good at that. They do an analysis about where it’s good and what’s bad. And they also look at what might be systemic, causing systemic problems in the workplace that limit the ability of first and second level supervisors to solve employee problems. So both are important. And those who are really sustaining themselves at the top and getting better do extensive data analysis.

Tom Temin Because you look at some agencies, I’m looking at Transportation Security Administration. Prominent agency, and it has really not very good scores, it’s 415 down on the list of components. And it has achieved unionization in recent years, it’s had a new contract in recent years, it’s had a systemic agency wide pay boost, to get it close to the GS range, there have been reforms to how shifts are handled, even improvements in the uniform fabric quality. So that’s a tough one. When you encounter most TSA agents in the public, they’re pretty good. And they continually improve the process of screening, there are always exceptions. And so that’s a mystery to me.

Bob Tobias I think TSA is a really, really great example. Because the first level supervisor, where as we’ve been discussing, is the most important point of contact in TSA has incredibly little discretion to solve your problem. The rules are clear, the regulations are clear. When I as employee, I’m going to report how I’m going to behave is all clear. I can’t solve your problems Tom, when you come to me and say, I’d like to zig instead of zag. I say, No, I can’t do that. So in an environment where the discretion of the first level supervisor is limited, it’s really hard to increase those scores.

Tom Temin All right, so your big takeaway from this year.

Bob Tobias I think those who have been doing well continue to do well because they continue to challenge themselves to be better. Every year, notwithstanding 12 straight years of NASA being at the top, they keep getting better. And once that momentum starts, it can keep rolling. And that’s the difficulty of those at the bottom.

The post What exactly does make a good place to work in the government anyhow? first appeared on Federal News Network.

With a big and contentious election coming on, there’s a new Hatch Act sheriff in town. Attorney Hampton Dellinger was recently confirmed as Special Counsel, leading the Office of Special Counsel. For some current topics, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin was joined in studio by Hampton Dellinger.

Interview Transcript: 

Tom Temin  And you are replacing the redoubtable Henry Kerner who has moved on to the Merit Systems Protection Board. But having chatted with you before the interview, you’re no slouch either. Tell us about yourself, where the heck do come from?

Hampton Dellinger Well, mainly from North Carolina. I was born in Mississippi, raised in Durham and Chapel Hill, North Carolina went to University of Michigan for undergrad Yale Law School served as the Deputy Attorney General in North Carolina. I was head of the Office of Legal Policy in the US Justice Department from 21 to 23. And was planning to return to private practice but was asked if I’d be willing to be nominated to head up the Office of Special Counsel. And I’m glad I said yes.

Tom Temin And what have you found there? So far,

Hampton Dellinger I have found an amazingly small agency of incredibly dedicated, talented colleagues, it’s daunting to think about it. And even to say it, we’ve got 2.2 million federal employees. And there are approximately 130, members of the Office of Special Counsel with this incredibly broad mandate, we do enforce the Hatch Act. And we take that very seriously. It’s something that I’ve thought about a lot and have made an announcement about, but we also look to deter government misconduct, and maybe at the core of our mission, protect whistleblowers within the federal workforce, to make sure that they are respected and protected.

Tom Temin And what are your observations, I guess, about the comprehensiveness of whistleblower protection, at least legally in the federal government? Because, you know, every five or six, seven years, there’s a gambit, legislatively to extend protections. And that includes the federal contractor side of it, what’s your sense of how much the blanket covers that bed at this point?

Hampton Dellinger I know there’s more to be done on the legislative side. And that’s something I will think about and talk about in the future. But the law on the books is robust. And obviously, Senator Grassley, the Whistleblower Protection caucus in the Senate have been at the forefront of this effort. But if you look at the protections as written, I think they’re very meaningful, and they ought to give a level of comfort that federal workers who see wrongdoing can speak up and should not and will not be retaliated against. Obviously, it’s up to our office to be vigorous. And we are in making the protections on paper reality. In practice, the Merit Systems Protection Board, obviously, as the Adjudicator plays a key role. And it is wonderful that they now have all three members of the board, we went five years without a quorum. And so those protections, I think, as a practical matter, dipped because the backstop of the MSPB was not functioning as intended. But the MSPB is back. My predecessor Henry Kerner was just sworn in. And he has got incredible experience having been at the Office of Special Counsel and knowing what the law is and how to protect whistleblowers. So, I think there is a lot of protections that are available right now.

Tom Temin All right, and what about on the contractor side in the sense of that?

Hampton Dellinger I have not been able to delve into that or get in the way that I wanted. The first thing I did, Tom, when I got to the agency just a couple months ago, is have one on one individual meetings with every one of my coworkers. So that was wonderful, meaningful, took some time. It also brought home though how small we are the fact that I could do that and have a meaningful meeting with every colleague. So certainly, there is the opportunity for federal government employees to call out misconduct by contractors. But that’s an area I want to spend more time looking into in the near future.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Hampton Dellinger. He’s special counsel in the Office of Special Counsel. And you mentioned Senator Grassley, this is one area in generally Hatch Act Two, for that matter, that both sides of the aisle so to speak, pretty much come together when it comes to whistleblowers.

Hampton Dellinger You’re exactly right. And that’s part of the attraction for me, you know, at the Justice Department is a nonpartisan agency, the rule of law is what governs when you’re a federal prosecutor, not partisanship. So, I was very comfortable with that. I worked in the state attorney general’s office, we were focused on the rule of law, and not politics. And so, the fact that it’s really a cornerstone of the Office of Special Counsel, that it is above politics, apart from politics, it’s even handed. That’s something that attracted me to the agency and I’ve tried to continue that tradition.

Tom Temin And let’s talk about your recent Hatch Act guidance because everyone is kind of bracing themselves for this election? I don’t even want to say upcoming, because we’re already into the campaign, because the two candidates were decided by the party so early. And because it is, I think it’s fair to say unusually contentious. And there is such a vast contrast between the positions and the candidates. Is there in your sense, maybe a little bit more? I don’t know magnetic attraction to things that would violate the Hatch Act this time around.

Hampton Dellinger Well, I’m sure election years always lead to an uptick in Hatch Act related questions for one. But I do want to make clear, Tom, that my announcement about the Hatch Act was not related to this election was not related to a past president, current president or future president or White House. For me, it was based on coming into the office looking at the law and trying to make sure I was in the agency was following the requirements of the law as closely as possible. So, the major point of the announcement, I think, which is received the most attention is the belief that as it’s written in the law, White House personnel should be subject to the same enforcement scheme as the 2 million other federal workers. And that’s in the statute. So, I’m happy to talk more about it. But I want to make sure there’s no misunderstanding with your audience. This wasn’t about this election, or any politician. This was about me doing my best to try to follow the law.

Tom Temin And when you refer, again, in the announcement to White House personnel, that’s really several types of employees there is the politically appointed Senate confirmed level, then there is a level below that that may not be Senate confirmed. You have the Schedule C; I believe it is people and so on. So, there’s not one type of White House employee.

Hampton Dellinger That’s right. But I want to be clear that the law is written has one carve out, and that is for Senate confirmed right personnel. And actually, as I understand it, I don’t think there’s many if any Senate confirmed personnel who would work in a typical White House, they are in the rest of the throughout the agency. So, for Senate confirmed personnel, Congress has said if my office sees the Hatch Act violation, we should report that to the President. And in that narrow category of presidentially appointed Senate confirmed personnel, the President will decide should there be some type of sanction or punishment for a Hatch Act violation. But for everyone else, the law says my office should take those matters, it has to take those matters that says my office shall take those matters to the Merit Systems Protection Board. So, I understand my office had a different view before I got there. But a lot of that was driven by the lack of a functioning Merit Systems Protection Board. So, for five years, as we said, there wasn’t a quorum, so there wasn’t any place to go. But now the board is back. The law is clear. And I think a level playing field for all federal workers, whether you’re in the west wing or western Kansas, or on the West Coast, is the right thing, and it’s what Congress has said.

Tom Temin Right, so that means functionally, then it’s the same for everybody except that carve out group a complaint is lodged, and then you pursue it through the MSPB. Because there is one.

Hampton Dellinger Exactly, exactly a Congress was very clear. On this point. Again, the case is we’re going to bring, and the office has traditionally actually brought in front of the Merit Systems Protection Board, or the most serious cases, egregious conduct, recidivists conduct, you know, Hatch Act violations over and over again, our office focuses a lot on education and training. We’re trying to prevent Hatch Act violations before they happen. And we’re very focused on that we can issue warning letters, we can ask someone we believe who has violated the Hatch Act to immediately rectify to delete the tweet that may have sought campaign contributions, for example, for a particular candidate. So, we’re looking to do lots of things in addition to taking the most serious cases all the way.

Tom Temin We’re speaking with Hampton del injure, he’s special counsel in the Office of Special Counsel. Well, let’s talk about what constitutes you know, Hatch Act violations. I mean, it gets trivial a button on someone’s lapel, or even I’ve heard over the years, a bumper sticker, you know, that you drive into the federal garage, and then they’re saying people, hey, we’re gonna at lunchtime have a fundraising for candidate XYZ, clearly egregious. And so, tell us about the balance of free speech for government people and this Hatch Act situation.

Hampton Dellinger That’s exactly right. Tom, Congress has said two things and the courts as well have backed up Congress on these points that one, we need to have an apolitical Federal workforce, nonpartisan, and so doing politics on the job at the office is not allowed. And that’s really the core of the Hatch Act. It’s to protect, merit based a political, non-political, Federal workforce. At the same time, federal employees have free speech rights, they have essentially unfettered rights off the job, most of them details@osc.gov, for a couple of caveats, but on the job when it comes to policy matters, who knows better than a government employee about government policy matters. And so Congress and the courts have traded protection so that if you see misconduct if you see law breaking abuse of taxpayer funds, and you’re a government employee, you have those whistleblower protections that we talked about, you always have a right to go to Congress to go to an inspector general to come to my office, the Office of Special Counsel, and even to go to the media to report misconduct. And so, what I tried to make clear in my Hatch Act enforcement update the offices update is that we recognize there’s a balance there. And you don’t want to just pick out a single word that may have had a connection at some point to politics, but now is understood as much if not more in the policy realm and say that words prohibited so we’re looking to create.

Tom Temin Give us an example like Maga.

Hampton Dellinger Maga is one that’s gotten a lot of attention,

Tom Temin or COME ON button or something.

Hampton Dellinger Right? I mean,

Tom Temin come on man, right?

Hampton Dellinger The possibilities are endless. So, the clear, no goes are known as Express advocacy. If you’re on the job, don’t talk about vote for vote against support give to that is clear political advocacy focus on helping to dictate the outcome of an election. And that violates the Hatch Act. But if you’re talking about some policy that you agree or disagree with, that’s not a Hatch Act violation. And I just am trying to say I know the devil can be in the details. And these can be hard closed decisions. But I want federal workers in the public to know that we care about both we care about enforcing the Hatch Act and protecting government employees’ meaningful speech rights.

Tom Temin And it might be a good time to discuss that in the context of when you are not at work. And you may want to help a fundraising drive or a telephone campaign type of thing that is allowable as long as you don’t identify yourself as a federal employee with this or that agency.

Hampton Dellinger Again, in general, I think that’s correct. We have a lot of information@osc.gov. And we are also available, the Hatch Act unit fields, hundreds, if not 1000s of questions, particularly in an election year. So, if anyone has a question about the do’s and don’ts, I would say first start with our website. If in doubt, don’t do it at work, no question. But go to our website, give us a call, send us an email, and we’ll get you a detailed answer. And we’ll try and do it very quickly.

 Tom Temin Right. So, someone could be canvassing say, you know, I guess people still do that door to door, probably not a good idea to say, guess what, I work in the civil appellate division of the Justice Department? Would you vote for candidate XYZ? Yet? Or to say I’m Joe Schmo your neighbor? Would you vote for candidate XYZ?

Hampton Dellinger Yeah, Example A sounds like a particularly bad idea. Right.

Tom Temin  And we should also review the prohibition against running for office that’s only for partisan office and a lot of local offices. And this has been I think, in the cases over the years, there is no such thing as an actual dog catcher. But that’s the example that’s used elected dog catcher, something that is totally nonpartisan, like the sewer board, you know, or the water Board versus, you know, city council member where it does get partisan.

Hampton Dellinger That’s right. And I know this comes up with some frequency in the DMV. And again, I would ask encourage folks to start with our website. We’ve got folks who’ve been doing this, not just for years, but for decades. I think we’ve essentially seen it all. But I’ve only seen it for a couple months. All right.

Tom Temin Well, I’ll put your I’ll put you on the spot one more time. Sure. What about union officials? That is to say, not employees of the Union, but employees of the agency who are on full time official time. This came up I think the last time around there was a federal employee union official was running for city council in Chicago, highly partisan, but I think he was a person who was full time, official time. So therefore, actually not working at the agency in an agency work, maybe a little bit of a limbo type of person.

Hampton Dellinger Could be and I think there’s an additional layer complexity for union members, which are the collective bargaining agreements, the agreements that some unions have with some agencies. So again, I would say the prudent thing to do is to think about it to check with us before you leap,

Tom Temin and maybe just decide what your priorities in life at some point if you Want to jump into partisan politics? Which is everyone’s right? Well, you gotta give up something perhaps to do that, right.

Hampton Dellinger In particular, if you want to do it during the workday, that’s or if you want to do it during your career. Right, right. But there’s a lot of opportunity. And again, this has been directed by Congress, people have very meaningful partisan political speech and activity rights off the clock, on the clock, they are limited, but at the same time, we want to make sure that government workers understand they do have meaningful, nonpartisan speech rights during the work day, and in particularly for whistleblowers. And that’s the core of our mission, which is making sure that whistleblowers are heard, sure, respected and protected. And if they’re retaliated against, we’re gonna do everything we can to make them whole.

Tom Temin And just before we close, I wanted to get your sense of if you have them yet plans for the agency, there’s 100 people, it’s not going to be 5000 people in the next Congress or anything,

Hampton Dellinger right. 130, though, don’t cut the agency even more.

Tom Temin All right, 130. What do you see as plans for just operational and management priorities for the agency as an agency as an agency head? Sure.

Hampton Dellinger Well, I want us to continue what Henry Kerner really instilled, which is this customer focus. And so, we get, you know, four or 5000 complaints a year. That’s a large number, we want to have meaningful interaction with every complainant with every potential whistleblower, to give them information in a timely fashion and do the best we can with every case. And the cases where we see egregious conduct misconduct, retaliation, I want to use all of our authorities. And now with a fully functioning Merit Systems Protection Board, we’ve got the opportunity to be appropriately aggressive, to be zealous, because that’s our obligation as attorneys, and to really fulfill the mandate from Congress, which is to protect whistleblowers in a meaningful way to enforce the Hatch Act, to make sure government employees have free speech rights. I’m very focused on our obligations to make sure returning members of the military get their federal civilian positions back the law known as USERRA. Sure. And we’re very focused on the Veterans Administration. That’s where we get the greatest number of complaints grew up in North Carolina, we think ourselves as America’s most military friendly state. So, I want to do everything we can for the members of the military and those who serve them at DoD and the VA. And

Tom Temin a final question, are you contemplating some process and technology improvements, just to get things faster? You know, at the MSPB, you find out the occasional case, where there’s 10 years of back pay do, which means the case took 10 years to adjudicate. And of course, they’re working through their backlog amazingly, diligently over and MSPB for that period when there was not a quorum. But for OSC, you know, there’s always processes and backlogs and federal agencies, something like kudzu, you always have to be hacking away at it.

Hampton Dellinger Well, I’d say two things, Tom, I want our website, our public facing information or complaint, portal to be as understandable and accessible and user friendly as possible. And the second thing I’m very focused on is to be as transparent as possible about our work in real time. So we have to do right by the whistleblower, and we have legal obligations to protect whistleblower confidentiality and privacy to the fullest extent possible, and at the direction the whistleblower, but working with the whistleblowers who come to our office, I’m looking for ways and there may be announcements and I’d be delighted to come back when we’re ready to do something publicly about how we can be more transparent in real time about what we’re working on about the concerns had been raised with agencies. So more to come.

Tom Temin Hampton Dellinger is Special Counsel in the Office of Special Counsel; we’d be glad to have you back. But thanks for coming in this time.

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